Those of you who have Comcast as an ISP will find this very
interesting.

And if they are doing it, it is likely other ISPs are too.

TMT


Comcast admits delaying some traffic By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology
Writer

Comcast Corp. on Tuesday acknowledged "delaying" some subscriber
Internet traffic, but said any roadblocks it puts up are temporary and
intended to improve surfing for other users.

The statement was a response to an Associated Press report last week
that detailed how the nation's largest cable company was interfering
with file sharing by some of its Internet subscribers. The AP also
found that Comcast's computers masqueraded as those of its users to
interrupt file-sharing connections.

Internet watchdog groups denounced Comcast's actions, calling it an
example of the kind of abuse that could be curbed with so-called "Net
Neutrality" legislation. It would require Internet providers to treat
all traffic equally - as has largely been the case historically.

Comcast has repeatedly denied blocking any Internet application,
including "peer-to-peer" file-sharing programs like BitTorrent, which
the AP used in its nationwide tests.

On Tuesday, Mitch Bowling, senior vice president of Comcast Online
Services, added a nuance to that statement, saying that while Comcast
may block initial connection attempts between two computers, it
eventually lets the traffic through if the computers keep trying.

"During periods of heavy peer-to-peer congestion, which can degrade
the experience for all customers, we use several network management
technologies that, when necessary, enable us to delay - not block -
some peer-to-peer traffic. However, the peer-to-peer transaction will
eventually be completed as requested," Bowling said.

The explanation is not inconsistent with the AP's tests. In one case,
a BitTorrent file transfer was squelched, apparently by messages
generated by Comcast, only to start 10 minutes later. Other tests were
called off after around 5 minutes, while the transfers were still
stifled.

Comcast's statement did not mollify Markham Erickson, executive
director of the Washington, D.C.-based Open Internet Coalition, a
group that counts Google Inc. and eBay Inc. among its supporters.

"What applications work, what don't, and at what speeds? Only Comcast
really knows," he said. "Comcast is making arbitrary bandwidth
allocation decisions slowing use of basic (programs) without being
clear to consumers what they really get when they buy a broadband
connection."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation confirmed the AP's findings with
its own tests - including spotting forged messages sent by Comcast's
computers to shut down connections.

While BitTorrent connections may eventually resume after being shut
down by Comcast, other file-sharing programs like Gnutella may be more
severely affected by the interference, preventing any kind of upload,
said Peter Eckersley, staff technologist at the online civil liberties
group.

"Characterizing that as delaying traffic I think is ... a stretch.
What they are doing is spoofing traffic or jamming traffic," Eckersley
said.

"I think they are trying to create as much confusion about this story
as they can because they've done something really scurrilous and out
of line for an ISP, and I'm sure they've been burned by the
community's reaction to it," he added.

Applications like BitTorrent and Gnutella are often used to illegally
share copyrighted files, giving the applications themselves an image
of shadiness. Recently, however, several companies have started using
BitTorrent to distribute legal files.

However, users also reported Comcast blocking some transfers of e-
mails with large attachments through an application that is fully in
the legal sphe Lotus Notes, an IBM Corp. program used in corporate
settings.

Kevin Kanarski, a network engineer for a major law firm, noticed the
disruption in August and eventually traced the problem to Comcast. But
he got the cold shoulder from the company's customer support
department.

On Tuesday, Bowling acknowledged the problem, saying it was
unintentional and due to a software bug that has been fixed. Kanarski
said transfers started working again last week.

"These are the kinds of software bugs you get when you have ISPs
messing around with hacking techniques to get some applications
running on their networks and not others," said EFF's Eckersley, who
is himself a Comcast subscriber.

"The bottom line is that if ISPs start regularly engaging in conduct
like this, then kids in their dorm rooms or small startup companies
that are trying to develop innovative new uses of the Internet are
going to have to come and get permission from players like Comcast to
get their protocols working properly," Eckersley said. "That kind of
veto over innovation would be very bad news."

___

On the Net:

http://www.comcast.com

http://www.eff.org